Many of us complain about the expensive cost of living in South Africa and high inflation. South Africa is, in fact, one of the cheaper countries in the world. This is according to 2018 Cost of Living data released by Numbeo and Expatistan.

Numbeo is a data research group, while Expatistan is an expat portal. Both of these companies have released their own Cost of Living data for this year and the results are interesting.

540 cities in the world were ranked by Numbeo, while Expatistan ranked 338 cities around the world. The data was recorded and compared according to various activities recorded across the countries.

Where Does SA Rank?

Pretoria has been ranked as the 354th most expensive city out of 540 cities for the Numbeo results. In the Expatistan results, Pretoria was ranked as the 185th most expensive city out of 338 cities.

Pretoria has officially been named as the most expensive city in South Africa for 2018. Since 2016, Pretoria has been on the top of the list, where it took the top spot from Johannesburg.

Johannesburg however, was not the most expensive city for long, as Cape Town was named the most expensive in 2015.

The image below illustrates the current spots for the most expensive city in South Africa for 2018:

Comparing Living Conditions In SA

Within the survey that the two data research companies conducted, they broke down the cities expenses according to a few variables. The table below illustrates the difference in living prices between the top five most expensive cities in South Africa.

According to Numbeo’s Cost of Living analysis, 29.9% of South African’s salaries go to food essentials. A whopping 25.9% of salaries are spent on rent on a monthly basis.

Once all the ‘needs’ are paid for, only 3.8% of South African’s salaries go towards clothing and shoes.